Diocese of Georgia Bishop Benhase Statement on Situation in Diocese of S.C.

Sorry, Bishop Benhase. Dem days are GONE! Bishop Lawrence tried that and this is the thanks he gets. This part of the timeline that is at the Diocese of SC website. It is a PDf so you can download it for yourself. Please notice what has happening in September and October!

August 27, 2012: Bishop Lawrence, Chancellor Wade Logan, Bishop Waldo and Chancellor Belton Zeigler discuss the desire of both Dioceses to find solutions to the issues between TEC and the Diocese of South Carolina. Bp. Waldo suggests that he ask the PB for a meeting to explore that idea.
• August 30, 2012: Bp. Waldo leaves voice message with PB about a possible meeting to find solutions.
• September 6, 2012: PB’s secretary tells Bp. Waldo that the PB can meet the next day or the 2nd or 3rd of October. October 3, 2012 is confirmed.
• September 17, 18 & 19, 2012: Disciplinary Board for Bishops (“DBB”) meets in Salt Lake City.
• September 18, 2012: DBB apparently certifies abandonment on three charges, two of which were previously dismissed on November 22, 2011. (Attachment B)(Certification received on October 15 is unsigned.)
• September 20, 2012: Standing Committee asks Bishop Lawrence to interpret provisions of the Constitution & Canons of the Diocese.
• October 2, 2012: Bishop Lawrence issues his interpretation of the Constitution & Canons. (Attachment C) Standing Committee and Board of Directors vote unanimously to disaffiliate with, and withdraw membership from, TEC effective upon the taking of any “action” as specified in the motion. (Attachment D)
• October 3, 2012: PB meets with Bps. Waldo and Lawrence. PB agrees that “creative solutions” are desirable to avoid total war. PB focuses on how long Bishop Lawrence plans to remain Bishop of the Diocese, asking him if five years is a reasonable assumption. Next meeting is set for October 11, 2012.
• October 9, 2012: PB asks to have a private conversation with Bp. Lawrence if he will be in attendance at a consecration in Atlanta on Saturday (October 13).
• October 10, 2012: Bp. Lawrence replies that he cannot attend because of other commitments. PB says (on October 15) this is the day she was notified of the DBB certification.
• October 11, 2012: Nick Zeigler’s funeral (died on October 8) so meeting set for October 11 is postponed until October 22, 2012. PB replies to Bishop’s October 10 response concerning her desire to meet with Bishop Lawrence in Atlanta: “I do need to speak with you in the next few days.” Wants a “phone call together with your chancellor.” Suggests Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday (October 15, 16 or 17).
• October 12, 2012: Bp. Lawrence notifies PB that Monday October 15 between 1 and 2 suits for the call. Date and time agreed to by PB.
• October 15, 2012: Call is moved up at PB’s request one hour to noon. During the call PB states that she received certification of abandonment from DBB on the 10th, that she will be sending Bishop Lawrence a restriction of ministry, that they are still willing to meet on Monday, that she desires this be kept confidential for the time being. Later that afternoon, the Chancellor of the Diocese, Wade Logan, receives from the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, David Booth Beers, an unsigned copy of the DBB’s certificate of abandonment with attachments and a letter from the PB regarding a restriction of ministry.
• October 17, 2012: PB informed by Bishop Lawrence that confidentiality can no longer be maintained because of the Diocese resolutions that were triggered by actions of The Episcopal Church.

Words, oh gentle like the morning dew.  Words poured from his fingertips.  Words that were oh, gentle and kind, wise, and dolphin-like.  Words that oh, threw a trusted friend and confidant under the bus.

Both are acting out of fear that the other side will get the upper hand, so they escalate their defenses, begin demonizing the other side, and the drum beat for more drastic action continues unabated.

Attributing motives.  Not a good thing. 

And if anyone can give me an example of Bp. Lawrence “demonizing” anyone, I’ll buy you a fancy dinner at one of Charleston’s finest restaurants some day…

If I had a dime for every time some liberal claims that the orthodox are acting out of fear, I’d be very wealthy.

Sigh.

He starts off with Dylan lyrics? I had a classic “WT_” moment there.

Bishop Lawrence didn’t consume enough milk and ‘Anglican ethos’ before having to deal with a bunch of back-stabbing cowards who hide behind collars…got it now. I think Jesus had a little problem swallowing that sort of breakfast cereal, too.

PS: If Lawrence were truly ‘acting out of fear,’ wouldn’t he have surrendered in abject terror to the 815 cheka by now…as have most red-state bishops?

In reality, this is probably the ‘hardest line’ Bishop Benhase can really take against the 815 Chekists if he wants to avoid the wrath of the purpled commisars.

I met Bp. Lawrence 28-29 Sept. when he led the Diocese of Ft. Worth’s BOSA retreat. We all agreed to not speak of TEC and his diocese’s conflicts. He would have had very sypathetic ears if he had desired to discuss the matter. He is too fine a gentle and Godly man to do such a thing and so we carried on with what I felt was the most spirit filled retreat I have ever attended. I pray for him and those he serves in South Carolina. May the good Lord above watch over guide them at this time.

Their actions have been and continue to be provocative and have not been marked by self-restraint and our Anglican ethos.

Balderdash.  The Diocese of South Carolina did everything in their power to STAY within TEC.  As TEC’s innovations continued unabated, the diocese took commensurate steps to differentiate themselves.  They clearly stated after the last effort to discipline the bishop that they simply wanted to be left alone.  They were not leaving. 
But NO!  The complainants and the DBB are so blinded, they were incapable of recognizing the widom of benign neglect.  Left alone, South Carolina would have done nothing more than grow their diocese.  They control no levers of power in the national church.  They were so outnumbered, they couldn’t have stopped the GLBT agenda if they had tried.
If Mark Lawrence were a gay man, the GLBT activists would be screaming homophobia from the rafters after two efforts to obtain consents and three disciplinary actions.  Why is it hate speech when the victim is gay and not when the victim adheres to the biblical standard of sexual morality?

Tell us how you really feel, Jill! Gosh I have not heard/read “balderdash” used in sometime. It was my dad’s favorite phrase to replace “cuss” words.

Sigh….. We tried ..... to no avail.

I find it especially despicable that the PB dropped the bombshell to + Mark Lawrence by phone.  When he was perhaps expecting a phone call about the rescheduled meeting, he is told that he has “abandoned the communion”.  Is there no end to her despicable nature???

I agree with you, Jill. Yep, those Episcopagan leftists would be screaming bloody murder if he had been a gay man and bishop.

If I were Fr. Lawrence I week see about returning the knife that Bishop Benhase used to stab him in the back.

This letter makes me sick. 

Bishop Benhase’s letter “appears” to be balanced, but it completely ignores that Fr. Lawrence took the actions BECAUSE TEC ABANDONED THE GOSPEL!!  Otherwise none of the actions Fr. Lawrence took would be NEEDED or even THOUGHT OF!! 

Shame on you Bishop Benhase - SHAME ON YOU!!  Next time consider just keeping your mouth shut.

Sorry, but this really irked me big time.  And Sorry Fr. Lawrence - I’m sure this hurt.

Both are acting out of fear that the other side will get the upper hand, so they escalate their defenses…

As if this is a symmetric conflict between equals. As if the power, the lawsuits, the imposition of canonical changes and the storm cloud of menace comes from both directions. As if either side is vulnerable to the other.

Misleading drivel masquerading as some reasonable via media.

I transferred form DGA to DSC.  I have never heard anything critical from the DSC clergy and leadership regarding TEC. I do not see how this is reacting out of fear. My friends in DGA could not understand how we could go about the business of being church without being involved in controversy concerning TEC. For a bishop who would not let a priest from DSC come into his diocese, Benhase gave this his best.

B. Hunter. Not to mention the knife that needs to be returned to +KJS for her actions! He can send both of them back to their respective back stabbing owners!

Remember the fable of the scorpion and the frog, #8.  They do it because it is their nature.

No smaller love hath a man than this.

“...all that my friend had to do was to put a pinch of incense in the fire for the emperor-god…why wouldn’t he do this and save himself?”
This makes me ill.

Sorry, Bishop Benhase, but Bishop Lawrence and the diocese were right in doing what they did by refusing to kowtow to your Presiding Bishop and her friends.

[vulgarities deleted]

But they are so “with it” when they start off with secular quotations!  Just like when they adopt the current agenda as gozpell.

#15… What he said.  That’s what I ment to say about +Benhase, & got carried away!

Benhase is a revisionist bishop in a diocese that is supported by money from wealthy traditionalists.  Well, was supported by them a few weeks ago.  Do you think maybe the plate and pledge has dropped off a bit in response to recent TEC actions?  Now he wants everyone to understand what good buds he and +Mark are, and how he agrees with +Mark on almost all points of faith, well, except, you know, those ones never mentioned by polite, revisionist Southern bishops with large contributions coming from the traditionalist parishes.

#15 I believe there is a fund raising program going on right now. Apparently the good bishop is the only one who does not know what the charges are or whether they constitute an abandonment of the communion. You do not have to have been part of the deliberations to know this. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

Anglican ethos? I believe there’s something intriniscally wrong with the “Anglican ethos” if its “generosity” includes acceptance of things that are morally wrong, things that Jesus would have condemned. I’m so tired of hearing that we all have to be tolerant of each other, especially when that tolerance is one-sided. I don’t see Schori and her henchmen being “generous” to their Anglican brethren who object to sodomy and baby-killing. Jesus was not all sweetness and light, and had some pretty harsh things to say sometimes. I don’t recall seeing too much about compromise on the nitty-gritty in the gospels. There was the story of the man whose ox fell into the ditch ont he Sabbath - but that’s hardly equivalent to gay marriage and abortion.

Seriously, the bishop is quoting Dylan?  The song, perhaps a prophetic word of the nature of original sin (no, we can’t fix it ourselves) is from the album ironically called, Oh Mercy.  Also from that amazing album is this:

Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the Bride

Ring them bells St. Peter
Where the four winds blow
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know
Oh it’s rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow

Ring them bells Sweet Martha
For the poor man’s son
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf
Ring them bells for all of us who are left
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through
Ring them bells, for the time that flies
For the child that cries
When innocence dies

Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they’re breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong

Bob Dylan 1989

No, don’t think I can say it better than that.

bb

“It would be a painful loss to lose members of the Diocese of South Carolina from our Church.”

+Benhase at least seems to appreciates the folly of the actions of TEC, and where they will inevitably lead.

MichaelA,
Maybe he is just thinking of the money that the Diocese of SC used to contribute to TEC. While not a large part of the Diocese’s budget, that financial spigot just got turned off.

It would be a painful loss to lose members of the Diocese of South Carolina from our Church.

If you had read anything regarding this issue, you would know that this is TOO LATE.

The price for being an orthodox Christian in the Episcopal “Church”, particularly for a member of the clergy, is to agree that all other clergy have as much truth about what it means to be a Christian as you do.  It is fine to be an Evangelical, a Charismatic, or an Anglo-Catholic (or combinations thereof); you simply cannot tell another clergy member that he or she is wrong.  You can advocate positions on a number of issues; you cannot delineate between theological truth and theological error. Panentheists must be declared to be as valuable to “the Church” as solid Trinitarians who know and uphold the Creeds as written.

In other words, you must check your brain at the door, agree to be agreeable, and let go of the Law of Noncontradiction. If you cannot do this simple thing, then you are not worthy of membership.  Easy!

Not for Bp Lawrence, nor for a lot of us.

This piece of writing is a disingenuous bit of political exudate to try to pacify the conservatives in his diocese from liberal faux-Christian pseudo-bishop Benhase.  A real God-fearing Biblical Christian cannot support gay marriage or gay anything else for that matter. 

In fact, Benhase outright accuses Lawrence of provocation and escalation.

St. Nikao,
Bishop Lawrence mentioned that when in a “cold war” situation (his terms to describe the situation between the diocese and the national church), every move one side takes to defend itself is seen by the other side as “provocation”. I think that describes the situation pretty well.

I have a friend in DSC who was being considered for a church in DGA until he was informed by Bp. Benhase that no one from DSC would be allowed to come to DGA. So much for the united mission to spread the kingdom and make disciples. Note the zero tolerance for inclusion.

Pb wrote:

Note the zero tolerance for inclusion.

Exactly! God forbid that a priest who actually proclaims the Gospel may be called by a parish in the Diocese of GA for its rector. Alas, we still have more clergy who want to be part of than the diocese than those who leave.